


The Life of Maedhros, in snapshot form

by AnguaLupin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Everybody Dies, M/M, because this is Tolkien, the author loves the d(eath)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 10:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnguaLupin/pseuds/AnguaLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Maedhros stands at the end of the farthest pier of Alqualondë, looking out to sea. He is covered with blood. None of it is his own.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The ocean crests below him, breaks. It is beautiful. The stars above it are beautiful, high and clear. Maedhros wonders how anything can be that beautiful now. How anything can be beautiful, ever again.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He hears footsteps behind him, does not turn. Does not need to.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Maitimo,” Fingon asks, the steady *drip drip drip* of blood from his sword a sickening counterpoint to the swell of the surf. “Maitimo, what have we done?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Maedhros has no answer.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Life of Maedhros, in snapshot form

Maedhros reaches out to touch the glowing leaves, and Nerdanel, laughing, pulls him back just a little. “Not so close, my love,” she says. “They will burn you if you get too close.”

But he stretches his chubby little arms towards the leaves again, because the lights are so beautiful, and Maedhros has no fear of fire.

 

***

 

Celegorm and Curufin tussle, and Maedhros would let them have at it, except they’re about two seconds away from knocking Caranthir off the windowseat where he’s perched with his book, and if Caranthir gets involved, there will be blood and all three will be sulking for days.

Amrod is still shrieking in his ear.

“Do you _mind_ ,” he snaps at Maglor, who is staring out the window, strumming idly on his harp. How Maglor can concentrate on music with the cacophony of five younger siblings ringing in his ears has always baffled Maedhros. “Some help would be appreciated.”

Maglor frowns, and then suddenly plays a martial air that has both Celegorm and Curufin untangling themselves from each other and sitting up, as Caranthir pretends not to pay attention but carefully shifts so he can watch Maglor out of the corner of his eye.

Amras starts shrieking in Maedhros’s other ear.

“You know, that really didn’t help any,” Maedhros says.

 

***

 

Fingon surfaces and laughs, head thrown back as water trails down his bare chest. “Come on, Maitimo!” he shouts, waving. The golden light of Laurelin sparks glints of red and gold from his wet hair. “Don’t be such a slowpoke!”

 _Damn my body to Angband and my soul to the halls of Mandos_ , Maedhros thinks. _I cannot bear much more of this._

 

***

 

The golden light of Laurelin sparks glints of red and gold from Fingon’s hair again, when he arches above Maedhros, sweat trailing down his bare chest.

 

***

 

“They will turn against us,” Fëanor says. He bundles the swords into the chest, shoving blankets on top of them so it looks like the chest is used for storage for the winter. “They’ve always wanted to, and now they’re going to think they have enough power that they can get away with it.”

Maedhros sees Nerdanel standing just outside the doorway, her expression tight and unhappy.

 

***

 

Maedhros turns and walks away.

Fingon does not call after him.

 

***

 

The gates of Formenos gape wide, and Finwë’s body lies before them. Maedhros doesn’t know how to _see_ , in this new flickering darkness, but he sees this: the gates of Formenos gape wide, and Finwë’s body lies before them.

He sees this: the door to the stronghold is broken, and the room beyond is empty.

He sees this: when Fëanor rises from beside the body of his father, he is not the same person as he was when he knelt down.

 

***

 

“The Valar would condemn you to _this_!” Fëanor shouts, and gestures to what lies around them. “The Valar cannot even protect you from one of their own!”

They stand upon the hill at Túna, and in the firelight their swords glint red. Beyond the circle of torches there is darkness, darkness such as none of them have ever seen before.

Maedhros thinks he knows, therefore, what he is calling down upon himself when he condemns his soul to the Everlasting Dark should he break or fail in his oath.

The rest of his life will be spent learning how wrong he is.

 

***

 

Maedhros stands at the end of the farthest pier of Alqualondë, looking out to sea. He is covered with blood. None of it is his own.

The ocean crests below him, breaks. It is beautiful. The stars above it are beautiful, high and clear. Maedhros wonders how anything can be that beautiful now. How anything can be beautiful, ever again.

He hears footsteps behind him, does not turn. Does not need to.

“Maitimo,” Fingon asks, the steady _drip drip drip_ of blood from his sword a sickening counterpoint to the swell of the surf. “Maitimo, what have we done?”

Maedhros has no answer.

 

***

 

The edge of one sail catches, then another, then another. The spars and then the masts begin to burn, merrily crackling, and in almost no time at all the flame is billowing out of the port holes, the great timber beams of the hulls blackening and splitting. Ash coats the proud white swans of the prows.

“Father,” Maedhros says. “Father, you cannot _do_ this.”

Fëanor turns to him and Maedhros cannot help but to step back. The man in front of him, the man he has known and loved all his life as his father, is unrecognizable, his eyes gleaming and mad. “There is nothing I cannot do,” Fëanor says. “Let them burn.”

 

***

 

Fëanor’s eyes are unclouded for the first time in a long time, no longer the fever-mad brightness that drove them out of Valinor, but clear and sane. He struggles to prop himself on one arm, looking towards Thangorodrim in the distance. “Melkor!” he cries, his voice the Fëanor of old. “Melkor, I defy you!”

And then his breath goes out in one last shuddering gasp, and the high wind of his passing leaves nothing behind but ash.

 

***

 

Melkor’s eyes are flames. Maedhros does not look at them. He looks, instead, at the Silmarils in their iron crown, and remembers Valinor. Remembers riding through the woods of Oromë with Fingon, remembers the stunned silence that followed Maglor’s first recital, remembers his mother placing the twins in his arms for the first time, tiny and precious. Remembers the two Trees at the height of their glory, and the quiet time when the lights mingled.

“You will bow to me,” Melkor says.

Now Maedhros does look in his eyes, and it is Melkor who steps back. “I will not,” Maedhros says.

The pits of Angband have terrors unimaginable, and all of them break on one who has seen the Trees in flower.

 

***

 

Sometimes, Maedhros dreams of ice. He does not sleep, not up here, hanging naked from one wrist and exposed to every element, but sometimes he dreams. Usually, he dreams of Valinor, of the days before darkness came between the sons of Finwë, but sometimes he dreams of ice, and bitterest cold, and despair. This is not so different from his waking existence that usually he does not think they are dreams, or if they are, he thinks that they mean nothing. But sometimes he remembers the Helcaraxë, and burning ships, and what desperate men may do.

 _Findekáno_ , he whispers in his mind, no longer strong enough to shout even his thoughts. _Findekáno, forgive me_.

 

***

 

Maedhros takes one last look at the new sun, at the light of Laurelin-that-was, and closes his eyes. “Finish it,” he says.

Below him, Fingon draws his bow, trying to see through his tears. “I love you,” he says. “I love you I love you I love you.”

His arrow breaks apart mid-flight.

 

***

 

“Manwë has mercy for you, even now,” Thorondor says. “The Valar do not forget you. Do not forget them, or what they have taught you.”

 

***

 

Maglor feels the hand he holds clench around his fingers; he looks with wild eyes to the face of his brother. Maedhros’s voice is soft, only an echo of its former strength, but the words are clear enough.

“I forgive you,” he says.

Maglor weeps.

 

***

 

Maedhros is still gaunt, and pale, and his handless arm with its leather cap is a mute mockery of the assembled might of the Noldor. But he stands tall, and he does not flinch when he meets Fingolfin’s eyes.

“The crown passes to you, Uncle,” he says. Maglor stands beside him; behind him, the rest of his brothers. “You are the eldest of the house of Finwë, and we have need of your wisdom.”

Fingolfin bows his head in acceptance, and pretends not to see how some of Fëanor’s sons shift at Maedhros’ words, and narrow their eyes.

 

***

 

“We are doomed, and damned,” Maedhros says, mouthing his way down Fingon’s neck. “And none of it matters, while you are here with me.”

 

***

 

The siege of Angband breaks with fire and ash. Maedhros remembers fire. Maedhros remembers ash. It is not the tortures of Angband he remembers, though, or the fire of Melkor’s eyes, it is the burning ships at Losgar, and ash coating the white swans of the prows.

 _It has all been for nothing, then,_ he thinks. _We have wrought our own doom, and we cannot escape it_.

There is fire from the sky, and people are calling out a new word. “A dragon, a dragon!” they shout, pointing up at the sky, and then they burn.

 

***

 

“Fingolfin is dead,” Thorondor says, perched on the walls of Himring. “He sought single combat with Morgoth, and was slain.”

Behind him, Maedhros hears cries of disbelief and despair, as if this blow is the one that cannot be born, after all the thousands dead. But Maedhros himself stands as unbending now, facing the eagle that once saved his life, as he stood when he renounced the kingship in favor of Fingolfin.

Fingolfin, Fingon’s father. Who is dead.

“Have you brought tidings to Fingon?” Maedhros asks.

Thorondor bows his great head. “He has taken the kingship of the Noldor,” he says.

“Good,” Maedhros says. “That is good.”

Maglor has come up behind him, and he hears him discussing something with Thorondor, before the eagle flies away, but he doesn’t pay attention to the words. After Thorondor leaves, Maglor comes up to him, touches his arm briefly, but doesn’t say anything. Eventually he too leaves, as the light fades.

Maedhros remains at the walls, staring out past the Pass of Aglon, to where clouds of smoke still hang over what had once been fair and green.

 

***

 

When he sees Fingon next, their lovemaking is no less fierce, but there is no sweetness left to it. The dead stand between them now, in a way the dead of Alqualondë never did, for all that the Teleri were killed by their own hands.

“We have wrought our own doom,” Maedhros says.

“We always had,” Fingon says. “But we can work it together, for a little while, you and I.”

Maedhros would never leave his arms, were he given the choice. He knows he is not.

 

***

 

Celegorm and Curufin arrive at Himring, horseless and servantless. When Maedhros hears why, he has half a mind to cast them back out into the wilderness, where their treachery will not bring ruin on what good is still left in the world.

He doesn’t, though. They are still bound by blood, and by words spoken in the first darkness they ever knew, and by hate.

 

***

 

Morgoth’s crown has two Silmarils, now, not three. The third is in the hand of Lúthien, daughter of Thingol and Melian the Maia, and her mortal lover. Maedhros rejoices, that Morgoth is not invincible, that one of his father’s jewels can burn unsullied. Lúthien has the blood of the Maiar in her veins, and with that power to stand up to even Morgoth.

His oath gnaws at him, even so.

 

***

 

Where an elf maiden and a mortal man can win through, so can the massed might of the Noldor. So says Maedhros, to all that will listen, and slowly the other lords agree. Morgoth is not invincible. Morgoth can be defeated. Morgoth can be conquered, and they can be _free_ , free of the ever-looming danger in the north, free of the fear and the shadow, free of the _oath_.

Fingon stands by him, as ever. Fingon whispers _freedom_ into his ear at night, and his eyes promise the future across the table where they make their plans. Maedhros does not dare to hope, not yet, but Fingon hopes for both of them.

 

***

 

The tide of battle turns, but it is not until he sees the Men – under _his_ banner – lifting swords against their brothers that he realizes what has happened.

There will be no future, then. He fights.

 

***

 

As the whips curl around him, burning into his flesh, Fingon closes his eyes. If this is death, he is ready for it.

 _Forgive me_ , he thinks at Maedhros, too far away, always too far away. _Forgive me for going first. I will wait for you in the halls of Mandos. I will wait for you._

Darkness opens in front of him, darkness and the cessation of pain. He sinks into it, if not gratefully, at least with relief. _Maybe we will find peace there._

 

***

 

“Fingon is dead,” Maglor says.  Maedhros stares out at the camp.  Blood soaks his tunic from the wound in his side, but he makes no move to staunch it.  He makes no sign he has heard.  “Did you hear me, brother?  Fingon is dead.  The Balrogs killed him, like they killed Father.  He is dead.”

Maedhros still makes no move.  Maglor reaches out, tentatively touches his arm.  “Brother?” he says.

“It was not mercy,” Maedhros says.  His voice is hollow, an echo through empty chambers.  “Manwë has no mercy for people like us.”

“Fingon is dead,” Maglor says helplessly.

“I am dead,” Maedhros says.  “I died there, on the precipice.  But Findekáno gave me life, for a little while.  Now he has taken it back.”

“The host needs feeding,” Maglor says.  “Our brothers are wounded.  We need to make camp in a more sheltered position.  The armies of Morgoth are probably searching for us.”

“He has taken it back,” Maedhros says.  “And I am dead again.”

Maglor leaves.

 

***

 

“Luthien has died, do you realize this?” Celegorm says.

Maedhros does not look up. “So?”

“She _died_ ,” Celegorm says. “Like a _mortal_.”

“I am very sorry that the woman you once tried to rape has left the circles of the world,” Maedhros says, shifting the papers around on his desk until he finds the one detailing the supply list from the foundries. “On the other hand, I know a fair number of other people who would be happy to go to such lengths to avoid you.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about! Damn it, Maedhros, _listen_ to me!” Celegorm slams his knife down on the table in front of Maedhros, skewering the list. Maedhros stares at it for a moment, then looks up.

“What, then, are you talking about, brother mine?”

“The _Silmaril_ ,” Celegorm says. “Luthien is _dead_. She gave the Silmaril to her son before she died. It’s in Doriath, with Dior. The _Silmaril_ , brother. Remember? Our _oath_.”

Maedhros stares at him. “I remember,” he says. There is a gaping pit of emptiness inside him, yawning bigger at his brother’s words. Maedhros wonders if it is the Everlasting Dark. Wonders if he will even know the difference, when it claims him.

 

***

 

Three bodies lie in the shadows of the trees of Doriath: Celegorm, Curufin, and Caranthir. Maedhros leans on his sword and regards them. He knows he should weep, but he has not wept since Fingon died, and tears do not come now.

 _Is this what you wanted, Father?_ he thinks. _Did you realize you were damning us all when you spoke the Oath, or did you just not care?_

 

***

 

“You did _what?_ ” Maedhros looks up from cleaning his sword. “They are _children_.”

“They are the children of that _Sinda_ ,” Celegorm’s captain says, not even bothering to hide his contempt. “What difference does it make?”

“Maitimo—” Maglor says abruptly, his eyes wide with shock, but Maedhros never finds out whether he means to restrain or encourage him, because with one quick movement Maedhros drops his cleaning rag, picks up his sword, steps forward, and takes off the head of Celegorm’s captain.

“Find them,” he says, turning to his own men – so _few_ , now – “find them and kill anyone who tries to stop you.”

But he doesn’t really expect the children to be found, and so he is not surprised when his men return empty-handed. _It was not mercy_ , he thinks. _Manwë has no mercy for us._

 

***

 

“My brothers lie dead in Doriath,” Maedhros says, with emptiness in his eyes.  “I held them when they were born; I fed them and washed them and brushed their hair.  I watched them grow and comforted their tears.”  He moves closer, and now there is something in his eyes: a burning light, too similar to what had been seen in Fëanor's before the end.  “They are buried in Doriath because of _me_.  **_I_** killed them.  I held them in my hands when they were no more than squalling babes and then _I_ sent them to their deaths.  For what?  For the sake of a pretty jewel and our father's accursed oath.  Do you think I will stop now?  When I have already damned us all?”  He turns to go.  “We leave for Sirion in the morning.”

“This will be the death of us,” Amrod says.

“We are already dead, Ambarussa,” Maedhros says without turning round.  “We are already dead.”

 

***

 

“No Silmaril,” Maglor says.

“No,” Maedhros replies, still cleaning his sword on a scrap of cloth.  Maglor waits, but nothing more is forthcoming.

“No _Silmaril_ ,” Maglor repeats.  “It’s _gone_.”

“Yes,” Maedhros says.  His face is the expressionless mask he has worn since Fingon died.  He does not look up.

“You have failed us!” Maglor cries.

At this Maedhros does look up, and in his eyes is that queer, burning light again.  “Do not act so surprised, little brother.  The Valar failed us.  Father failed us.  Uncle Fingolfin failed us.  Am I greater than they, to succeed where they did not?  _Eru_ has failed us.  We are damned.”

Maglor shivers.  “Do not blaspheme.”

Maedhros turns away.  “We blasphemed when we took the oath.  Eru has cursed us; why can we not curse him?  It makes no difference.”

 

***

 

The world is rent asunder.

 

***

 

“Damn the Silmarils,” Maglor says. “Damn the Silmarils, and damn the oath, and damn Father, and damn you. We have given _enough_ to the jewels and Father’s cursed pride. I will not kill for them again.”

“You will,” Maedhros says. “You will, and be damned.”

 

***

 

It has been so many hundreds of years since Valinor, a full age of Middle Earth since Maedhros walked in the light of the Trees with Fingon, and was at peace. So many years filled with war and death and the breaking of oaths, and yet the Silmarils are unchanged, their light the light that had always been. The sight of them brings Maedhros to his knees, tears he never thought to shed again in his eyes.

He reaches out, picks one up. For one glorious moment it flares brightly in his hand, banishing the shadows from the corners of the tent. For one glorious moment, Maedhros believes it can banish the shadows from the corners of his mind.

And then the pain hits.

 

***

 

There is fire, and burning. _Findekáno_ , he thinks. _Findekáno_.  And then – darkness.


End file.
